My last playthrough was approaching 600 hours (over nearly 2.5 years on and off) when I decided it was getting too boring being a Level 42 "superman" who could drill enemies clean through by farting in their general direction. I was hankering for the old days when I used to be a 7-stone weakling, so I restarted with a new character designed to be as wimpy as possible, with OOO installed to get rid of the "nursemaiding" effect where the game never throws enemies at you too difficult to handle.
I've just achieved Level 8 again and, believe me, it's been a wild ride getting there! OOO makes Oblivion much more Morrowind-like with some dungeons being LETHAL until you level up sufficiently, and throws occasional HARD enemies at you, even at Level 1. For example, I saw my first Land Dreugh at Level 2, first Minotaur at Level 5, and the Gargoyles (a type of super-Imp) are TOUGH! Up to Level 4, I had to stick to the roads tagging along behind mounted Legion Soldiers for protection. Yep. That's the reason Bethesda had them patrolling the roads, and now they're actually NEEDED!
Since I bought the game 5 years ago, this is my third character and I've only finished the Main Quest once. Total gameplay time is probably around 850 hours. I mean, 600 hours and maybe about 50% completion? Now THAT's replayability! Most action games deliver about 30 hours gameplay but you're "on rails" along for the ride and then the game gets shelved until you "forget" how the journey goes. Unfortunately, I have a good memory, so subsequent "journeys" never live up to the excitement of that first-time train-ride when the "scenery" was NEW to me. Morrowind and Oblivion deliver 100's of hours because you're NOT "on rails". You have the freedom to explore, do what you want, when you want and for as long as you want. You can roleplay your character, hunt Deer, go dungeon delving, collect weapons/armour, go on Alchemy ingredient collecting expeditions, etc. YOU create your own variety of experiences, so the game never gets boring. For me, that's the appeal of the Elder Scrolls series of RPG's that keeps me coming back for more.
Apologies for being off-line for a week, folks. My ADSL Router died on me and I've just had a new one delivered today. Yay! Back on broadband again!
